Sand and Mist.

Shit, it's two weeks since my last post. My sense of time has been totally warped. On the one hand, time is flying by because Dani and I have been doing so much. There's something magical about the change from Winter to Spring. Um...alright, actually, there isn't. It's just warmer so going out and doing things becomes more attractive.

We had a fight of sorts a few days ago, on our way back from Amsterdam (after seeing the Gotan Project live; they're very entertaining, although sober Dutch audiences are painfully boring). I thought it was all over that night, he was so upset and angry I didn't know what to do. I don't want to talk about the reason for the fight because it's too complicated and nuanced and I'm not a post-modern philosopher, so fuck it. All I remember was thinking how I never wanted anyone to stop being angry with me more then I did then.

The next day, I couldn't get out of bed till well past noon, when he came and asked me if I wanted coffee. He told me he wasn't angry anymore, but that we couldn't be together because we were too different. I always keep hurt behind a wall of nonchalance if I feel there's no more I can do about it, and no reason to talk about it. He mentioned the attitude, and I explained it. Firstly, what could I do? Secondly, secretly I'm a little religious in my belief that things always happen for a reason. (I'm referring to things within our control, famine for example happens because shit happens.) And when life throws you lemons, the best you can do is make lemonade. Yes, I got that off a card someone once gave me for my birthday.

The weather was lovely, so we decided to go to the beach. It stayed lovely till we got to the beach, where all of a sudden a great mist descended upon the dunes, and an awful cold wind started blowing towards the sea. I thought, "How apt, the Dutch weather never fails to read my moods." Strangely enough, the sand was warm, and when I lay down in it, the wind did not touch my face.

I lay there in the sand feeling the wind brush against the tip of my nose, and it felt like I was in a cocoon of wind and mist. And in my head I was thinking about it all. Why am I here, what do I want to do, and most of all, what really mattered.


On my list, Dani is everything I've ever wanted in a guy. He's annoyingly intelligent, lovely to look at, arty, pretty experimental, responsible, neat, kind, hygienic, floppy hair, good bone structure etc. you get the idea. (Oh and the war, I've got to mention the bit about surviving one of the most tedious wars in the last decade) But until that day at the beach, I never thoroughly thought about how I really felt about him. Knowing he was what I wanted was one thing, and actually feeling it, I guess, was quite another.

I mean of course I totally had the hots for him, and I was charmed and all of that, but for some reason it was only that afternoon while I was lying in the sand in my little cocoon that I actually felt and knew he wasn't kidding when he said he was in love with me. There's knowing, and there's comprehending.

All along, since I arrived, there was always this guilt I felt while being with him. Part of me was constantly telling myself I didn't come to Europe for a romance, I came here to find a job and make a life. Then it occurred to me that maybe I got the order wrong, and that I was a fucking fool, because there are plenty of jobs out there but there's only one of him, and there's only this one moment right now that I have, for me.

I guess part of me always felt like he was a cop out on my part. Like, I was taking the easy way out by letting him take care of me. I don't deny that it's preferable to being single and alone, but then I still can't help but feel I pussied out. Then when it seemed as if we were done for good, I started to think about it all, and how, even if I'd met him in Sing, I'd probably still feel the same about him anyway.

I boiled it all down to this test I call "The One Who Got Away". You know the person you had feelings for sometime in the past and then for whatever reason never got with or broke up with, and, years later you find yourself thinking about them, and wondering "what if?" That's the test. And I thought then (or maybe I did think it before or slightly after, I don't remember) that he wasn't going to be the one who got away.